


The Village Hidden in Your Smile

by otsutsukis



Category: Naruto
Genre: Angst, Fluff, Reader-Insert, i do b cryin doe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-07
Updated: 2020-07-07
Packaged: 2021-03-04 20:54:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,483
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25122718
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/otsutsukis/pseuds/otsutsukis
Summary: Itachi’s eyes were your anchors. They were the first thing you came to memorize about him———rivaled among other things, by his hair. Your fingers would run through the strands that felt like silk, with a hope of maybe finding some other kind of anchor there. Whether if it was for him or more so yourself, one thing was for certain, it would have been to keep him safe and with you.
Relationships: Uchiha Itachi/Reader
Kudos: 26





	The Village Hidden in Your Smile

**Author's Note:**

> I have no words, this is just pure angst???  
> Entirely gender neutral apart from one line, but no pronouns are used to refer to the reader.  
> Fanfiction is new territory for me still, I got the idea for this a couple weeks ago and just had to write this out.
> 
> _Originally posted on my tumblr sideblog, sageofangst._  
> 

**BREATHING.** The sound is small but all the more sacred to you, as the man who lays in slumber before you is all but lucky to be alive. Your eyes graze across his face with a slow pace that matches the flare of his nostrils. Treading from the soft slope of his chin, following the incline to his rosened lips. You make your way up the curve of his nose when you spot something peculiar. A stray eyelash sitting wistfully at the edge of his cheek bone. Some would maybe find the sight endearing, and it is a beautiful one at that, but the ache fills in your heart in undeniable.

Symbolism begins to weave itself in this fraction of a moment. A rogue eyelash, fallen away from it’s home and kept apart from all the rest to live alone. Who is to say just how many lashes have fallen from your lover’s eyes? _Do they mock or take the place of tears that could have never been so easily shed?_ To mourn over the losses this world and life had given him.

They were the first thing you came to memorize about him ~~———~~ rivaled among other things, by his hair. Your fingers would run through the strands that felt like silk, with a hope of maybe finding some kind of anchor there. Whether if it was for him or more so yourself, one thing was for certain, **it would have been to keep him safe and with you**. Yet no matter how hard you tried, you could never manage to match the way Itachi himself would slip through your fingers. **He was no ghost to you** , much more like a dream, _rooted in truth_ and unconscious longing.

When he was away from you, it was his visage that brought you peace, the one that made you feel safe. Long days were long were combated by the sights that reminded you of him. The book he’d been reading before being assigned a new mission for the Akatsuki, left facedown on the last page he’d read, sitting atop the coffee table, a sign of his impending return. A shop in town that you’d order dango from because after the last attempt, both of you decided to just leave it to the pros. Sometimes you thought you caught a glimpse of him in the corner of your eye, watching over you whenever he could and other times your eyes would wander desperately looking for him in the faces in the street.

When you were lucky, you were right though. You’d get back home, and there on your doorstep would be some little gift waiting for you. It was his way of letting you know he was still alive and thinking of you, even if he couldn’t stay for a while. And after completing his missions, Itachi would be there waiting for the moment you walked in through the door. For that moment when your face would beam at him so brightly, he couldn’t help but smile too, laughing into your hair when you leapt into his arms.

You always thought about how you’d love to live in the lines that appear at the edge of those eyes. Tucked away in the ridges of his skin, a place that could give him a life away from all the heavy weight. It just might have made seeing those crinkles a more often occurrence. **“The village hidden in your smile,”** was what you told him once cheesily after he questioned you about where you wanted to live. While lying together on the couch, he’d laugh and ask about how it could ever be possible for him to live in his own face…

There’s this saying that has grazed the ears of many in passing, “…if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you.” Many heed this as a warning, and perhaps rightfully so, but history has forgotten what comes before this, “Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.” You used to ponder it often, the grey morality of it all. Was the hate that led to a child losing his innocence lesser of a monster than the massacre they made the child commit? Here was a man who condemned himself to bear the titles of traitor to a village, murderer to his brother and monster to the world. In time, history would see to it that Itachi’s sacrifice would as well, come to be forgotten. To you, this was a frightening realization. One you knew you could never admit it to him. Because it was selfish, and the fact of the matter was, many people didn’t know about the reality anyway. Even then, it might not have been enough to break the mirage.

You were too lost in thought to notice him waking up but his soft hum is what breaks through the fog. It pulls you back to a place that you never want to leave. His eyes begin to flutter as he starts to become more fully awake. A feeling starts to creep over you, the same one you get every time your lover opens his eyes. The crisp airiness of sea foam bubbling against your feet. Silently and without cause, those orbs invite the gates and dams within you to flood. Water crashes above you and it’s heartfirst into the abyss for you.

This descent started long ago, your head now well beneath the surface of the water. You decide that if your lover should recuse himself in such a manner, devotion tells you that the only recourse is to dive deeper into that grotto. A trove full of moments where an older brother is doting over his baby brother, a son must take the lives of his parents, and flashes of the two of you keeping each other company. You would stay swimming there for the rest of eternity.

But it’s when the sound of his voice falls on your ears that your head breaches through to the other side. Air fills your lungs and is cool on your skin. It’s not warm or sunny, but at least neither of you are alone. “Are you alright?“ He asks, voice still heavy with signs of weariness. The muscles in your face pull your lips into a small smile while you hum in response. You bring your hand up to caress the side of his face gently, refusing to cast more stones in his pockets. With fondness you bring your fingers up to catch the rogue eyelash. Carefully you bring it up to his perspective, resting it lightly on the pad of your finger. “Make a wish,” you say to him as the moon shines from overhead. Is it trivial? Maybe, but your voice is barely above a whisper and strains against the tension at the back of your throat. He looks from you to your finger, thinking about how you carry such a minuscule piece of him so easily and with such sentiment. ~~There is no doubt in his mind that you could have carried a child of his with the same conviction.~~

Flickers of his past run through his mind like a movie screen. To him you were already a wish that was more than enough, not to mention his plans were going to be actualized someday. He simply had none left ~~———~~ too selfless to put his own wishes above the one-sided promise he made to his brother. Nevertheless, he indulges your request. **_“I wish to live with you in the village hidden in your smile,”_** his gaze locking onto yours. Just like that he knocks the wind out your lungs. He raises a hand up between the two of you, cradling yours gently within his, and blows away the small remnant. It floats away carrying not only his reality but the vacant hope for a dream. Now wish you could have kept it, to serve as the sole guardian of this man’s wishes.

Itachi’s eyes were your anchors. They were pools of obsidian, filled deep with an unspeakable weight. He didn’t need to use the Sharingan to show you his memories. In them you could see the reflection of the places he’d been, the people he’d sent to the next plane, a slew of burdens, a brother he loved more than anything, and the harrowing feeling of leaving him behind to all of it. In time, along with all the rest, you’d found yourself in those very same eyes.

He presses a soft kiss to your hand and you smile away the tears that threaten to fall. You close your own eyes and both of you are on a stony beach. The sky is a ray of infinite stars, but he is at your side. Together you walk into that abyss, not as monsters but as **_lovers_**.


End file.
